Although St. Petersburg is only three hundred years old,
it experienced tremendous upheaval in its short history
before taking on its present form.

      St. Petersburg, built by Peter the Great in the northwest corner of the country, was conceived as – and indeed became – a window into Europe. A window is a dwelling’s eye; and the eye is in the head. Hence St. Petersburg is the head and the mind, while Moscow is the heart and the soul of Russia.
      Russia, as one contemporary writer put it, is for the most part a land of “dissipated being”, an endless expanse. Suddenly, almost three centuries ago, it was given this uncharacteristic city of stone (petra means stone in Greek; burg is German for fortress).
      St. Petersburg became the first, the swordpoint, the transceiver tuned in to Europe and the waves of Western influence, thr collector of Russian power, which civilization harnessed and communicated to the world at large. Theis, by the way, is the reason why the Revolution could only have started here – as a response to the West.
      It would be wrong to think of St. Petersburg, either then or now, as being synonymous with Russia. Yet the rest of the country would not be Russia without St. Petersburg. Russia, as the author Georgy Gachev remarked, “is realized as a permanent dialogue between St. Petersburg and Rus”.
 
An ancient trade route
 
      The Neva was Russia’s traditional oulet into the Baltic. A thousand years before the city was founded, Lake Nevo (Ladoga) was the northern border of the territories of the Ilmen Slavs, the ribe that lived on the rivers that flowed into it.
      The Volkov, which connected Ilmen and Ladoga, was the main route from the Varangians, also known as Vikings, to the Greeks in Byzantium; the route that started on the Neva and ended in the mouth of the Dnieper, on the coast of the Black Sea. Along this route Vikings, Slavs and Finns co-exited in trade and politics.
      Though scholars still hotly debate the origins of Russia, evidence tends to support the idea that the Vikings gave rise to a unified Russian state in the 9th and 10th centuries, with centres in Kiev in the south, and Novgorod in the north. Kievan Rus, as historians now call it, had borders from the banks of the Neva to the rapids of the Dnieper.

Nevsky’s times

      With time, the ruling Viking elite became assimilated into the culture of the Eastern Slavs, who by the 13th century found themselves at war with their Scandinavian neighbours; a conflict which would continue for the next seven centuries, with success passing from side to side (the fineal war ended in 1809 after Russia annexed Finland). The first famous battle took place 750 years ago on the Neva; Birger, the earl of Sweden, was routed by Alexander, the prince of Novgorod, who is known in the country’s history as Alexander Nevsky (“of the Nava”).

Villages in the delta

      To undermine the resistance they encountered from Novgorod, the Swedes built the Landscrona fort on the Neva in 1300. The Russians destroyed it and built, in 1323, a fort of their own – Oreshek. After Moscow annexed Novgorod in 1471-78, the fort, which stood further inland on the Neva, was part of the northern defensive chain together with Ivangorod, Ladoga, Yamburg and Koporye.
      By the 16th century, there were several dozen villages (over 1,000 houses in all) in the delta of the Neva. The village of Spasskoye stood where the Smolny Palace was later built; the village of Palenikha was situated where Liteyny Prospekt runs today. There were two villages on the bank of Bezymenny Erik (Fontanka) – Usadische and Kalinkina (the latter gave its name to Kalinkin Bridge); further up the river Neva lay the villages of Verkhny and Nizhny (Upper and Lower) Dubok. After Russia, under Ivan the Terrible, lost the war of Livonia (1558-83), the northen forts were climed by Sweden. On the site where Landscrona once stood, the Swedes built a new fort, Neinsants.

War with Sweden

      By the end of the Baltic Sea. This irritated Russia and contradicted the interests of Denmark, Poland and Saxony. In 1700 a war against Sweden was declared. The goal of Peter the Great’s Northern War was to reclaim the lands of the “fathers and grandfathers”, the old Russian forts and outlets to the Baltic. Undaunted by early defeats, Peter proceeded to renovate old fortifications, replenish the armed forces and create an artillery force almost from scratch. In November 1702, Noteburg (Oreshek) fell to the Russians after a 30-hour assault. Peter gave the fort a new name, both sufficiently belligerent and understandable to his enemies – Schlüsselburg (Key Castle). On 1 May 1703, the Russians took Niensants. They now controlled the entire length of the Neva: Russia held the “key” and the “lock” to the Baltic sea. But to “stand on shore with steady foot”, these forts were clearly not enough. In the search for a new and more reliable stronghold, the Tsar explored the isles in the small Hare Island.

The founing of the city

      Here, on 16 May 1703, Peter founded the new Russian fort, which he named Saint Peter Burgh. That autumn, over 120 cannons were installed on its bastions. In November, the first peaceful merchantman sailing from the Netherlands visited the fort.
      From the beginning, Peter wanted his creation to be grandiose and glamorous. In the autumn of 1704, he wrote to his closest friend and advisor, Alexander Menshikov, that he was going to call his “capital” Piterburgh. Meanwhile, the Swedes still threatened the fortress from land and sea. But not for long: several years before the end of the Northern War, the Russians seized all lands to the north and west of the fortress within at least a 100-km (60-mile) radius. From the sea, the mouth of the Neva was protected by Fort Kronshlot on Kotlin Island (later to become the sea fortress Kronstadt).

The early years

      In the autumn of 1703, the number of workers sent to St Petersburg from various Russian towns reached 20,000. This figure doubled the following year. But the city neede trained construction workers. Peter issued a decree concerning he “eternal settlement” of masons, bricklayers, carpenters, metalworkers, joiners, tailors and bookkeepers in St Petersburg. These workers were given houses and vegetable plots. Roughly 1,500 of them came every year; in the end, they formed the basis of the city’s working population. There were also hired hands, soldiers and Swedish prisoners-of-war.
      In the first governor of St Petersburg, Alexander Menshikov, and the city’s first architect, Domenico Trezzini, from Switzerland. In 1710, building work began on the Church of Isaac Dalmatsky. That same year, the Alexander Nevsky Monastery was founded. The opening cut in the woods between the Admiralty and the monastery was called Great Perspective (later to be called Nevsky Prospect). In 1712, Trezzini started work on the stone Peter and Paul Cathedral inside the fortress. As the cathedral rose above the ground, the fortress gradually became known as Peter and Paul.
      Next came the turn of private residences. Menshikov ordered a magnificent three-storey stone palace with a large garden on Vasilievsky Island. The Summer Palace was built on the left bank of the Neva for Peter himself. The verdant Summer Garden surrounded the palace. On the same bank, but closer to the Admiralty, a winter palace was built for the Tsar (not to be confused with today's Winter Palace which houses the Hermitage). Further upstream, there was the Foundry (now Liteyny Prospect) - St Petersburg's second largest industrial enterprise. To the east of the Foundry lay the Tar Yard (now the Smolny), which produced tar for the Admiralty.
      The capital of the north St. Petersburg officially became the Russian capital in 1712, when the Imperial Court moved from Moscow to the banks of the Neva. Several months later, the Senate too moved there (the Senate was a collegiate body that succeeded the Boyar Duma). Young Russia celebrated victories not only on the field of battle, it also carried out fundamental internal reforms which ushered in a new era of development.
     Construction was booming. Peter himself presided over construction work on the Vyborg Side, Vasilievsky Island and at Peterhof and Oranienbaum (his summer palaces and parks). In 1714, almost 10 million bricks were produced for the city. Yet more building material was needed, and Peter banned construction in stone all over the country with the sole exception of St Petersburg. Masons and other "artists of the building trade" were sent to work on the new capital by force.
      Many foreigners were invited: the architect Jean-Batiste Leblond, the stucco-moulder Bartholomeo Carlo Rastrelli, the oak-carver Nicolas Pinaud, the fitter Jean Michel, the caster Pierre Sauvage, the metal-worker Theodore Belen, masons Bethalier and Car-dasier, and many others. Each of them was given a shop with 10 Russian apprentices. This turned St Petersburg into a unique training centre for builders, who were shown the most advanced methods and absorbed the latest word in their trade.
      Progressive ideas stood behind the general plan of the city, notably the master layout of the "House of Nobles". Stone edifices designed by Leblond (which have mostly been redesigned since then) are still regarded as the architectural backbone of many of the older quarters, which still retain their matchless rhythm and harmony of proportions.
      The Northern War ended in victory for the Russians in 1721. It lasted for over two decades and cost Russia the lives of 40,000 soldiers and at least 70,000 civilians. But the country did not pay this terrible price in vain: the gap between the Middle Ages and the new times was bridged. Russia emerged as a developed and mighty European power.

Industrial development

      With St Petersburg providing access to the Baltic Region, Russia gained the right to join the circle of northern countries, traditional exporters of timber, leather, lard, fish, grain and iron. Peter's Persian War (1722) strengthened Russia's presence on the Caspian Sea, with its trade routes connecting Central Asia and Western Europe. But exports and the transit of oriental goods were not the only factors of the economic boom in Russia. The country now had a well-developed industry. The number of industrial enterprises grew more than tenfold during Peter's reign and most of these innovative and previously unheard-of factories were concentrated in St Petersburg.
      The scale of reform, which Peter implemented with utter ruthlessness, bred a new ideology, created new economic and political needs and promoted the dynamic development of education, science and culture - primarily in the new capital.
      In 1711, the first print shop was opened in St Petersburg, producing the country's first newspaper, Vedomosti. Peter's library was moved to St Petersburg from Moscow, and it was opened to the public (albeit noble classes). Next door, a collection of rarities was on display -the first museum in town (the Kunstkammer).
      The volume of printed matter grew 20 times in Peter's lifetime. Ninety percent of this output was secular literature concerning navigation, ship-building, mathematics and medicine, as well as calendars, manuals and translations from foreign languages.
      Many hitherto unknown things came to Russia: new uniforms and new firearms for the regular army regiments, huge naval vessels, libraries, a public theatre, museums and the Academy of Sciences, parks and park sculpture, fountains and canals, "exemplary houses". In the avenues of St Petersburg there were new clothes, new manners and a new style for daily intercourse, amusements and festivities. It seemed only natural that all these novelties were more concentrated in the new capital than at any other place in Russia.

The rise of the gentry

      Meanwhile, the gentry was expanding its influence, particularly its right to own estates and serfs, and concentrated on ridding itself of the rigidly prescribed duty (in accordance with Peter's decree) of state service. The gentry won the day: On Bestowing Liberty to the Gentry of Russia, the manifesto signed by Elizabeth's successor, Peter III, finally freed them of state duties. This essentially turned the gentry into a class of parasites, which controlled the entire might of the empire's military-bureaucratic machine. Their position grew stronger with each new military success: the war for the Black Sea with Turkey in 1735-39, the war for Finland with Sweden in 1741-43, the Seven-Year War with Prussia in 1756-63.
      By the middle of the 18th century the population of St Petersburg reached the 100,000 mark (fewer than 40 percent were women). There were 2,000 aristocrats, as many merchants, and entire quarters filled with foreigners - Englishmen lived on the Neva behind St Isaac's Church, Germans and Frenchmen on Vasilievsky Island, and Italians between Sadovaya, Nevsky and the Fontanka.

A centre of art and science

      As Russia's capital, St Petersburg became the country's centre of financial capital, wealthy clients and the "educated class" of the imperial court. This offered a unique opportunity for architects, artists, actors and scientists. The court orchestra appeared in 1729; many aristocrats kept orchestras and choirs of their own. In the 1730s, an opera and ballet theatre was put together in the imperial palace. In 1738 ballet-master Jacques Landais opened a ballet school which founded the famous Russian tradition of choreography. In 1756, there appeared The Russian Theatre for   Comedies and Tragedies (it was founded by actor Fyodor Volkov and its first director was Alexander Sumarokov, the famous poet and playwright).

Catherine the Great

      In 1762, Peter III was removed from the throne after another palace coup. The reins of power passed into the hands of his wife, Catherine II, the daughter of an insignificant German landowner. But Catherine went on to rule Russia for a third of a century. She presided over the conquest from Poland of the territory which is now Belorus and Ukraine, and waged war with Turkey to conquer the Crimea and the northern coast of the Black Sea. Georgia and Armenia asked for Russia's protection, and entered the empire, which soon spread over 17 million square kilometres, and a population of 28 million.
      New enterprises were under way - Berd's Iron Foundry, Potyomkin's Glass Factory, the Admiralty's giant Izhorsky Complex. The number of hired workers grew, even though a third of the population of the capital was made up of bureaucrats and army and navy officers. The growing might of the state was adequately represented by the majesty of monumental architecture. Cultural life, science and education thrived. In 1764, the country's first educational establishment for women, the Smolny Institute, was founded. In 1774, the Mining College, one of the first in Europe and which was crucial for expanding Russia's industry and hence weapons manufacture, was opened.
      New educational establishments, academies, theatres and libraries all required buildings which would reflect the ideals of the "enlightened monarchy", notably its devotion to "universal well-being". The stern and majestic classical architecture which replaced mid-century baroque, expressed these socio-aesthetic ideals with the utmost elegance and simplicity.
      Stone embankments were built on the Neva and the Fontanka. The Hermitage went up next to the Winter Palace. Creations by Yury Felten, Antonio Rinaldi, Jean Batiste Vallen de la Mothe and Giacomo Quarenghi were numerous and pleasantly different. In 1782, St Petersburg got what is probably its most famous masterpiece -the Bronze Horseman (the statue of Peter the Great).
In this way, the end of the century produced the unique, majestic and beautiful city that people began to call the Northern Palmyra, in homage to the great city of antiquity renowned for its harmony in architecture.

The new century

      Emperor Pavel ascended the throne in 1796, and with it began one of the shortest but most controversial and colourful reigns in Russian history. Pavel was both an extraordinary visionary and pedantic reactionary.
      When Napolean disbanded the Maltese Order in 1798, Pavel gave the Order refuge in Russia, and later on that year the Maltese knights living in St Petersburg elected him Grand Master. For three years, St Petersburg was the capital of the Maltese Order, and an Orthodox tsar headed the oldest Roman Catholic order in what scholars now consider one of the first and most significant ecumenical gestures between the two religions. During his short reign, he made spasmodic attempts to restore the austere might of Peter's epoch in new social conditions, to transform the gentry into a mechanically exact, powerful apparatus, which could successfully face a revolution comparable to the one that had taken place in France.
      The gentry responded with yet another conspiracy: no sooner had the emperor moved to his new, impenetrable Mikhailovsky Castle than he was assassinated on 3 March 1801. His son, Alexander, ascended the throne as Russia was entering the 19th century.
      The liberalism and reformist intentions of Alexander's first decade on the throne and his profound belief in the firmness of the Russian monarchy were reflected in an architecture of grandiose proportions and serene beauty.
      Outstanding architects, with their new understanding of the city ensemble, aimed for openness and organic harmony with the city's layout. St Petersburg gained the ensemble on the tip of Vasilievsky Island (Thomas de Thomon), the new Admiralty (Andreyan Zakharov), and the Kazan Cathedral in Nevsky Prospekt (Andrei Voronikhin).
      It was from this monument to Russian military glory that on 11 August 1812, Count Mikhail Kutuzov, who had been appointed commander-in-chief, left to join his army at the front; it was here that the remains of the great general were buried after the war with Napoleon had been won.

Mirror of the tsars' might

      The 1812 war, in which a 14,000-strong volunteer corps from St Petersburg took part, unleashed an unprecedented wave of patriotism. The victory over Napoleon, the triumphant march of the Russian army, and the taking of Paris boosted Russia's international prestige. Growing national sentiment marked the new phase of construction in St Petersburg. It was the time for "High Classicism", the art which, as the greatest master of the school, Carlo Rossi, put it, "was designed to leave everything that Europeans of our era created far behind in its majesty".
      The city that elevated all spheres of human endeavour to unprecedented heights now expressed itself in the perfect harmony of architectural masterpieces. The rare compatibility of expanses of water and open spaces, the balanced novelty of architecture and the unforgettable light of white nights made St Petersburg, the world's northernmost capital, one of the most beautiful cities ever seen by the human eye.
      The city reminds you of its might with every step you take. Helmets, shields and javelins are ubiquitous ornaments on the innumerable walls of palaces and administrative buildings. They are repeated on the rich facades of private mansions. Laurel wreaths and military symbols are often incorporated into iron grilles. St Petersburg would allow no one to forget that it was the capital of the empire, the seat of the all-powerful sovereign.
      And if a foreigner chanced to find himself in this Russian city and marvelled in awe at the poverty of the serfs who wore straw lapti on their feet, there were usually clever people to tell him, "Don't be fooled, stranger! These poor serfs will take to the axe if another Napoleon tries to burn down their wooden huts again. Don't be fooled, stranger, when you admire the nature of Russia, don't be fooled by the slow, unhurried flow of Russian rivers, by the eternal calm of the endless Russian steppe..."
      St Petersburg is the mirror of the tsars' might. Canals cross its straight paved streets, and the waters of the Neva wash the granite of its quays. All this gives the city the appearance of a northern Amsterdam, the only difference being that there are no windmills, no ephemeral European-ness of scenery. Frequent rains wash the walls of the luxurious palaces, arranged into architectural ensembles as if by someone's divine hand. Low clouds hang over the city like a threatening omen.
      The city is rich, proud, haughty in the Tsar's way. The iron grilles, lace made of metal, illustrate the skills of the people who made them. Yet they speak nothing of freedom and airiness. The entrances to many edifices have stone arches, yet their only purpose is to commemorate a military or triumphal peace.
      Austerity, geometric harmony and military might are the distinctions of this city. This frowning force cannot be made friendlier even by the domes of innumerable cathedrals, resplendent in their gold attire. Poets and dreamers have not found life comfortable here. They have looked at the city with a stranger's eye, listening to the wind howl around the spacious parks and seeing relentless Father Time march by.

Social contrasts

      There was no other place where social contrasts were felt so acutely. In the golden epoch of aristocratic culture, the apex of clamour and splendour, protests thundered in St Petersburg, voices which condemned the evils of serfdom and monarchy, voices which brought the Revolution to life. In 1816, the "Union of Salvation" was founded in St Petersburg by radical officers, veterans of the 1812 war. The goal of this small secret society was to destroy monarchy, adopt a constitution and eliminate serfdom.
      Two years after that, there appeared the "Union of Prosperity", which had as many as 200 members. In 1820, after riots in the Semyonovsky Regiment and the government's vicious reprisals, the leaders of the union dissolved it, and formed a secret society in its place. The "Northern Society" was set up in St Petersburg in 1821, and its counterpart, the "Southern Society", appeared somewhat later in the south of the country.

The Decembrists

      Emperor Alexander died late in 1825. The members of both societies decided to play upon the indecision in the highest corridors of power concerning the nomination of a successor to the throne. The coup was planned for 14 December 1825. On that day, the Decembrists fired the first shot against tsarism in Senatskaya Square behind the statue of the Bronze Horseman.
      They lost. The leaders were executed on the wall of the Peter and Paul Fortress on 13 luly 1826 - Pavel Pestel, Kondratiy Ryleev, Piotr Kakhovsky, Sergei Muraviev-Apostol and Mikhail  Bestuzhev-Riumin. That year, the Emperor Nicholas created the ominous Third Department of his Chancellery; the gendarmes in its employment started their campaign of terror which struck against freedom of thought in Russia.
      The total domination of the empire's military-bureaucratic machine, whose only purpose was to perpetuate serfdom, should have stopped the country's economic, political and cultural development. Yet it did not, in large part because the country's defence needs, as in the time of Peter the Great, demanded that the country strive to maintain par with other European powers. So, St Petersburg continued to act as the industrial centre of backward, feudal Russia. Its enterprises were frequently equipped to state-of-the-art level, manned by well-trained worker cadres and supervised by professional engineers.
      The first steam engine was installed in the Admiralty in 1800. The first steamship, the Yelizaveta, came out of the shipyards in 1815. In 1801 the Kronstadt Iron Mill was transferred to St Petersburg. Later it became known as Putilovsky Works; in Soviet times and even today, it is called Kirovsky Works. The first locomotive was produced in 1845. St Petersburg was also Russia's first city involved in the railroad business. The first railway connected the capital with the suburbs - Tsarskoe Selo and Pavlovsk - and opened in the autumn of 1837; in 1851, the Moscow to St Petersburg railway came into operation. At the same time, the city gained its first cast-iron bridge across the Neva (today the Nikolayevsky Bridge).
      Industry and transportation required qualified engineers. In 1828, the St Petersburg Technological Institute opened its doors, followed by the Civilian Engineers' School four years later. The Academy of Sciences opened new branches. The Pulkovo Observatory (located near today's Pulkovov international airport) was opened in 1839. In 1842, there came another important scientific event - the foundation of the Depot of Standard Measures and Weights (where the famed Dmitry Mendeleev, the father of the periodic table, worked later). During these years, such greats as Alexander Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov, Nikolai Gogol and Mikhail Glinka lived and worked in St Petersburg. St Petersburg's magazines - especially Sovre-mennik and Otechestvennye Zapiski - printed heated articles by the new generation of revolutionaries, the men who founded the revolutionary-democratic movement in Russia: Vissarion Belinsky, Nikolai Dobroliubov and Nikolai Chernyshevsky. Literary criticism, which was a legal form of expression, was used, in effect, to criticise the social order. As new revolutionary ideas spread, underground circles appeared and the Tsar took action to suppress all criticism of this form.
      By 1855, the losses in the Crimean War against the European powers showed Russia could not keep up. Shortly before the fall of Sevastopol, the largest Russian fortress on the Black Sea, Nicholas I died in his Peterhof residence. Before he died the emperor observed the ships of the British fleet which were anchored off of Kronstadt, on the horizon. Russia was about to lose the Crimean War - "payment", as Russian historian Sergei Soloviev put it, "for 30 years of lies, 30 years of suppressing everything that had life and spirit, of popular force."

Times of terror

      A new stage of the struggle for liberty started in the 1850s and the 1860s. It was marked by mass activity, a change of leaders, from aristocrats to people of common origins, democratic-minded intellectuals and students. The government of Alexander II proceeded with reforms, which had the effect of opening the way for capitalist development in Russia yet preserving the foundations of absolutist rule. Serfdom was abolished; administrative management reorganised; self-management was allowed at grass-roots level; a judicial reform was carried out.
      Yet society wanted more: the government lost popularity and appeared more and more conservative. Narodniks (populists) tried to provoke a peasant uprising through terrorism. In April 1866, Dmitry Karakozov, a student, attempted to shoot the Tsar near the wrought-iron fence of the Summer Garden. He failed in his assasination attempt, but there was now no stopping the revolutionary terrorists. This upsurge of tragic heroism was accompanied by the birth and gradual development of an organised proletarian movement.
      The first worker leaders in St Petersburg did not yet dissociate their goals and means from the populists' terror tactics. In February 1880, Stepan Khalturin placed a bomb in the Tsar's apartment in the Winter Palace. The emperor once again, miraculously, escaped death. One year later, however, on 1 March 1881, the death sentence passed on the Tsar by the populists was carried out.
      On the embankment of Ekaterininsky Canal (now Griboyedov Canal), he was mortally wounded in a bomb attack; the blast also succeeded in killing his assassin, Ignaty Grinet-sky. From now on, all tsars and their high-ranking officials became targets and the government found itself constantly at war with organised terrorism. Six years later, on 1 March 1887, conspirators preparing to assassinate Alexander III were arrested and executed. Among them was Alexander Ulianov, Lenin's elder brother.
      Lenin himself first emerged as a political activist in St Petersburg in 1895, when he presided over the creation of the Union for the Struggle to Liberate the Working Class, which later evolved into the proletariat's revolutionary party.

The Revolution draws to a close

      The defeat suffered by Russia in the war against Japan (1904-05) accelerated the Revolution. On 2 January 1905, the workers of St Petersburg's Putilovsky Works went on strike. This grew into a general strike by 8 January. On 9 January ("Bloody Sunday"), a peaceful worker's demonstration was met by gunfire. The first barricades appeared that same day. The first Russian Revolution had begun. It lasted for two years and covered the entire country. Nothing was gained.
      Reaction and police terror set in. By 1913, the volume of industrial production had increased tenfold over the previous 50 years; the city's 1,000 factories and plants employed half a million people, of whom 70 percent worked at enterprises employing more than 500 persons. St Petersburg produced 15 percent of the national industrial output. The capital had almost 600 banks; 40 percent of the capital invested there belonged to monopolies.

Art flourishes

      Spiritual life was also full of contradictions and tension. It assumed a great many forms. The Russian Museum was opened in 1897. Its creative approach to the artistic heritage brought artists into the centre of public attention - including the works of Alexander Benoir, Kon-stantin Somov, Yevgeny Lansere, Mikhail Dobuzhinsky. Traditional painting by Ilya Repin and Valentin Serov was still quite popular. The radical left-wingers rallied around the "Youth Union" and its stars - Kasimir Malvich and Vasily Kandinsky.
      Plays by Anton Chekhov, Maxim Gorky and Leonid Andreev enjoyed immense popularity. The stage of the Mariinsky Theatre was graced by Fyodor Shaliapin and Leonid Sobinov, Anna Pavlova and Matilda Kseshinskaya.
      Russian music was enriched by the works of Alexander Glazounov, Alexander Scriabin and Sergei Rachmaninov. The search for new forms and decisions in modern-style architecture, and the development of the St Petersburg architectural tradition by the neoclassicists (which continued even after the Revolution) brought new architectural solutions, and these served to determine the image and layout of the city for the following decades.
      World War I became history's great accelerator. St Petersburg was in the centre of things (it was then given the more Russian name of Petrograd). The ruling circles were losing their hold on power, workers and the other have-nots lived in want and the bourgeoisie got rich on manufacturing supplies for the military. The war took more and more lives, fuelling pacifist and revolutionary sentiment among the workers.
      In 1916, the revolutionary movement in Petrograd became a tangible threat to tsarism; in 1917, Russia was caught in a nationwide crisis, which led to the democratic revolution in February when Emperor Nicholas II abdicated. But a single, effective government could not be created, and two entities, the moderate Provisional Government and the radical leftist Soviets of Workers, Soldiers and Peasants Deputies, ruled the country.

The Bolshevik coup

      Lenin returned to the city in April, and immediately called the workers and peasants to struggle for a socialist revolution. The conditions for this revolution were ripe by autumn. On 24 October (6 November, according to the modern, Gregorian calendar), an armed struggle for power began. The Bolsheviks ordered soldiers and workers from the Red Guard to take control of bridges, the telegraph system, railway stations and the central power station.
      The next morning Lenin, who headed the uprising from the Bolshevik headquarters in the Smolny Institute, and Leon Trotsky, the head of me Petrosoviet, ordered the State Bank and the central telephone exchange to be seized. A single shot from the revolutionary battleship Aurora on the evening of 25 October signaled the beginning of the attack on the Winter Palace, where the Provisional Government was in conference.
      The palace was taken, and the majority of delegates to the Second Congress of Soviets, which convened in Smolny, adopted Lenin's Decree on Peace and Decree on Land. This congress also elected the new Executive Council and the council that was to govern the country - the Council of People's Commissars, chaired by Lenin. In January 1918, the Bolshevik commissars dispersed the Constituent Assembly, which was Russia's first truly democratically elected body, but which worked for one day only (the Bolsheviks did not have a majority there); the new state system was then legalised through force by the Third Congress of Soviets at the end of January, and the onslaught of the Red Terror.
      On 6-8 March 1918, the Seventh Congress of the Communist Party convened in Petrograd. Lenin addressed the congress no fewer than 18 times. He managed to come out on top of the heated debate: the Brest peace with Germany, Austro-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey, which was concluded on 3 March, was approved. This was the last party congress to take place in Petrograd - on 10 March the government and all central authorities moved to Moscow, which once again became the capital of Russia.

Date of publication : 29-03-2006 (Viewings of article : 2797)
Published : Stolz